NEWS PRESS: Scientists: Florida flamingos are native to the state

You can find flamingos at zoos, on lottery tickets and across lawns throughout the state.

But do the birds even live here?

That argument has been ongoing for nearly a century since Florida's once vast flamingo population crashed due to over-hunting.

But it seems to finally have been solved after a team of scientists published an abstract earlier this week that says flamingos now found in extreme South Florida are wild and native to the Sunshine State.

"The common attitude amongst the scientific community is as far as the birds go, they are escapees," said Jerry Lorenz, one of the scientists who published the abstract and the director of research at Audubon Florida. "That's what the state considers them. That's what the federal government tells us. That was the gospel."